Less Than a Man
by Flame Tigress
Summary: What did Voldemort see in the Mirror of Erised on the night he tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone? What had Tom Riddle seen years before...?


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Disclaimer: It's J.K. Rowling's, it's Scholastic Publishers', it's Bloomsbury and Raincoast Books', it's Warner Bros.', it's a whole lot of people's but it ain't mine.

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Author's Note: Yea. More Riddle sympathizing. A bit of nonexistent blank filling in _Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone._ So what did Tommy/Voldie see in the Mirror of Erised, anyway…?

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Less Than a Man

It's a bit dull, waiting insubstantial here for Dumbledore to come rescue Harry Potter, as I know he will eventually. But even the great and revered Professor Dumbledore's timing isn't perfect, so I have a little more time to wait with the unconscious form of the boy, clutching the blood-red Philosopher's Stone protectively, like a favorite stuffed bear, and the corpse of my servant Quirrell. I cannot touch the boy or the Stone he holds, because I have no substantial form; I am just a spirit, unable to see myself at all in the Mirror of Erised from where I half-am, gazing at the glass at an indirect angle…

The Mirror of Erised. Well I remember when I first encountered it, over the Christmas holidays of my first year at Hogwarts – exactly as Harry Potter did. I know when Potter found the Mirror, know what he saw, and the bittersweet longing he felt when he saw it – like an investor in Potter's mind, I hold a share in the thoughts of Harry Potter, though I paid dearly for that stock when I failed to kill him…so long ago, ten years seem, when ever patiently waiting for a chance to rise again; but such a short time in eternity.

I can stand to wait a few more minutes for Dumbledore to come.

I gaze at myself in the Mirror of Erised, though I have no visible or tangible eyes. I see myself a man, standing here in my sinister black robes, with a pale, frightening face, but a striking one nevertheless. Dark, unfathomable eyes gleam back at the barely-existent me, embers of red glinting somewhere deep within.

I can remember what I saw every year that I was at school, when I returned Christmas after Christmas to explore my desires in the deserted classroom, in the old, stained, cracked glass that was cryptically inscribed on the frame with the backwards, broken message: "I show not your face, but your heart's desire." Funny – I always did see my face, but in different, unattainable, but always desirable situations.

The oddest thing was that in my first year at Hogwarts, I saw the same thing as did Harry Potter.

~~~~~~~~~

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Pale and drawn with nights of restless tossing and turning, troubled sleep if any, small, eleven-year-old Tom Riddle wandered into the empty classroom on the deserted corridor. He closed the door behind him, unsure if he had been sleepwalking or merely desperately searching physically as he had been desperately searching spiritually for the answers to all his questions. The one that stood out most in his mind was: Why? Why did his father fear magic enough to abandon his wife and his son? Why was his mother dead? Why did he grow up in a cold, brutal orphanage, not rescued by the wizarding world until he had already lived eleven years in hostile, unloving, unforgiving surroundings?

"Why?" he asked aloud, his voice echoing hollowly around the empty room, so small.

He spotted a mirror standing in the shadows of the corner of the room, and padded over to stand before it. He saw himself, of course, but also a man and a woman standing behind him. He instinctively turned around nervously, and saw no one there. The people must exist only in the mirror, he knew, or only in his mind. He sighed, realizing that these were his parents – the beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned woman and the similar-looking man. They smiled wistfully at him, but he gazed somberly back at them, knowing that this was only illusion, as was any fleeting solace in the harsh world. Tom scanned the mirror for an indication of its function, and spotted the inscription at the top of the gold-colored frame.

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi," it said. Tom narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the cryptic writing. It might be another language, but he couldn't think of any real language that looked like that. It was the wrong characters for any Cyrillic, Semitic, or Oriental language, and the structure of the words – especially with the 'h' in the middle of words – did not suggest any Romantic, or even Germanic language. It might be backwards, he thought, because this is a reflector. Oh – "I show not your face but your heart's desire." Tom turned his gaze back to his reflection and his parents. He did want to have them standing behind him, supporting him…even loving him – he desperately desired their love.

Desire is an illusion, he thought. This mirror is an illusion. Like the world.

~~~~~~~~~

I lost some of my wide-eyed, open-minded innocence as I grew older. I lost some of my pained need for love, as pain turned to bitterness; I needed something then that Harry Potter may never feel the need for.

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Thirteen-year-old Tom Riddle gazed grimly at the mirror once more. He was taller, he knew, with a handsome form and countenance. The thought was not a boast in his mind; merely factual inventory.

It was not a thought in his mind that he should know what he most deeply desired – he knew that the deep workings of the unconscious were curtained by layers of thoughts, ideas, alibis, and façades. He knew that some desires did not even surface in dreams, and that they could only be pried from the innermost bowels of his soul by a powerful magical device like the Mirror of Erised.

While the physical Tom stood at businesslike attention before the mirror's face, the Tom that was reflected back at him was breathing hard, a look of triumph on his face, as he stood over the dead body of his father, his wand pointing at the prone, still form. His mother stood behind him, echoing the passionate victory that flooded her son's cold, calculating mind with an equal fierce pride. She was beautiful, Tom noted without feeling. It was just a fact.

Revenge, Tom acknowledged, was what he desired most – revenge on his father, a lowly, unfeeling Muggle, for his mother. And her pride in Tom…and perhaps her love as well. Tom had vowed, however, never to love because it was love that killed his mother. On the clear, lake-placid surface of his mind, he felt no anger. It was merely a fact. He would never love because one generally avoids deadly substances.

~~~~~~~~~

Harry Potter will never want revenge. Justice, perhaps, but not revenge.

Gryffindor and Slytherin, I have noticed, are the Houses that take in fosterlings. Those that are Sorted into Gryffindor are Sorted so because they will not harden to the world that has hurt them; their pain will turn to empathy, not cruelty.

The vision I beheld in the Mirror in my fifth year indicates another uncanny similarity between me and Harry Potter…

~~~~~~~~~

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Tom wondered, in his fifth year, if he would see in the Mirror of Erised this year the goal of his activities in the Chamber of Secrets – the death of all the Mudbloods in the school. He stood once more at rigid attention before the lifeless, expressionless, emotionless inspector, waiting for its verdict.

The basilisk was not in the image that appeared before Tom's eyes. Nor were the dead, mangled corpses of Mudbloods.

It was the statue of Salazar Slytherin that he saw, the ancient, wise face gazing down on him with stony, silent approval. In the mirror, Tom's face glowed with joy for the acceptance he had gained from one even more important than his teachers, who were all astonished and delighted with Tom's brilliance; it was the acceptance of the mighty ones in whose footsteps Tom was destined to follow, and whose accomplishments Tom had to live up to.

Or maybe it was the one thing making the scene complete that stirred unwilling, wistful joy in cold, calculating Tom Riddle's heart: the presence of his mother – daughter of the line of the great Salazar Slytherin – standing proudly behind him, communicating silently with the fierce pride on her face that her son was worthy.

Perhaps the vision would inspire him to do his work with the basilisk dutifully. Perhaps at last someone would die.

~~~~~~~~~

…"a nice thirst to prove yourself."

The funny thing about what I saw my fifth year was that I didn't care much about killing Mudbloods. I was not the traditional Slytherin bigot. I think that the opinion that the Muggle-born are inferior is one that a person is raised with and rigorously taught, rather than an intrinsic prejudice in people born to be Slytherins.

The next important time I gazed in the Mirror of Erised was in my seventh year, the year after which I would go out into the world to rise as the Dark Lord. I remember that instance as well as the others.

~~~~~~~~~

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When the halls of Hogwarts were deserted for Christmas holiday, Tom returned for the last time, he knew, to the disused classroom and the Mirror of Erised – the Mirror of Desire. He stood grimly in front of it, his head held high, ready for whatever it would tell him about his soul.

He saw himself the ruler of all the wizarding world, reigning with an iron fist and harshly punishing his enemies, unopposed and merciless. None could harm him, or even approach him. Mercy he did not show to those who did not approve of his rule, true, but nor did he randomly slaughter the innocent and submissive. They worshiped him, an angry, vengeful god of justice.

Of course, his mother stood behind him as ever, her pride and satisfaction what motivated the Tom in the mirror to accomplish whatever great feats he strove for. But now her presence was not as prominent; she stood in the shadows, concealed, behind all of Tom's desires, but not his most important. He wanted power now that love had long been impossible – power and invincibility.

~~~~~~~

That was the last time I ever looked into the mirror until now, and that was the only vision at all close to coming true.

Until Harry Potter. He destroyed my vision, as I destroyed his. It is impossible to imagine how much I want to kill the vulnerable little child, who stopped my rise above death, above fear, to the position of power that I rightly deserved. But a form of shadow and vapor cannot; my anger, like a wave of boiling, storm-tossed, bitter ocean water, subsides unfulfilled, never having struck the shore.

Dumbledore will be coming soon; he will tell Potter that he snatched him out of the very jaws of death. Harry Potter will never know that I lingered here after deserting the weakened body of my slave Quirrell, watching Potter's still figure and longing for the means to murder him…longing for a substantial form in which I could be harmed, yes, but in which I could also do harm. Realizing with some dismay that I would sacrifice indestructibility for the means with which to cause pain.

Funny, how similar we should be. But Potter is the sort of fosterling sheltered by Godric Gryffindor: the sort that will never become embittered by his hardships. He does not want random, ruthless retribution for the sorrowful fact that he never really knew his parents…his mother. I do know why I could not touch him without suffering. Dumbledore will think I do not understand, and that is why touching Potter caused me pain. But I do understand – it was the shield of his mother's sacrifice, the courage that it took for her to die in her son's place…her love. What I do not understand is how Potter can live without hate and bitterness when he never really knew his mother's love. It was my subconscious longing for what lives in Harry Potter's very skin that stung my soul, burning me with a fire of anger and hate and loneliness, all of which had vanished from my composition long ago, along with any sort of passion. The world is cold and hostile, and so cannot quench the similar coldness and hostility I have sought to cultivate within myself.

I face the Mirror once more, and _my _mother's love glows in every pore of the flesh that enwraps my body, a sacred vessel for the fullness that resides within, replacing the emptiness that floats now, outside the Mirror's glass surface, in more emptiness. Oh – so that is what I have always wanted, every time I have looked in the Mirror of Desire: humanity. Love, revenge, acceptance, power, flesh and form. Though I thought I always desired supernatural status – to be more than a man, susceptible to such pestilence as love, heartache, and loneliness.

And I can no longer be a victim of such things; I am no longer human enough to die, it seems, lacking the humanity to be flesh and blood… Interesting: the phrase 'flesh and blood' usually refers to fallibility, and though not flesh and blood, I find myself far from infallible – a fact, and not a lament. 

What is it that makes a human? Of innovation and reason I have enough, though I hope to have risen above my original motives, the irrationality of vengefulness and hatred that is coupled with reason in the human psyche; creative and destructive power I possess, perhaps beyond the extent of humanity. I have achieved the status of 'more than man,' thinking that it was what I desired most, back when I was passionate and could not draw back and view myself as a spectator.

Or, with the loss of the passion that characterizes humanity – the highest of animal beings on this earth – have I become…

Footsteps approach – it is Dumbledore, no doubt, here to – ah – snatch Harry Potter from the jaws of death, such as they are. Walls being no barrier to me, I pass through them into the night sky as it lightens to gray.


End file.
